Evaluation of the Quality of Wood Pellets Available on the Market

¹ University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Department of Power Engineering and Transportation, Gleboka 28, 20-612 Lublin, Poland
² West Pomeranian University of Technology, Department of Renewable Energy Sources Engineering, Papieża Pawła VI 1, 71-459 Szczecin, Poland

^* Corresponding author: grzegorz.zajac@up.lublin.pl

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to assess the quality of wood pellets available on the market. This assessment was made on the basis of the technical analysis and elemental composition: C, H, N, S. 14 different types of wood pellets available on the market were tested, each of them came from a different producer. In addition, an attempt was made to assess the content of organic matter in the tested pellets on the basis of methane fermentation. The innovation in the presented work is the use of biomethane production potential assessment for pellet fuel, which until now has been practised only in the case of substrates for biogas production. The parameters characterizing the tested pellets in energy terms did not differ significantly. The high calorific value and low ash and sulfur content indicated that the output biomass was of good quality. The differences in the production potential of biomethane of the tested pellets do not allow to state unequivocally that methane fermentation can be used to assess the quality of pellets and their contents of organic matter. However, the large BMP differences obtained for individual pellets suggest that some pellets may contain impurities inhibiting the methane fermentation process.